ANNALS OF JUSTICE LOST IN THE JIHAD Why did the government's case against John Walker Lindh collapse? F ive weeks ago, John Walker Lindh, better known as the American Tal- iban, was quietly transferred to a medium- security prison northeast of Los Angeles, in the Mojave Desert. He was relieved by the move, which took place after federal officials in Alexandria, Virginia, had de- briefed him for a year about his knowl- edge of Muslim extremists. His tempo- rary cell in Virginia had reminded Lindh of a dog kennel; his meals were delivered through a metal slot in the door, and he had no interaction with other inmates. At the new prison, Lindh has a roommate and a windo On occasion, he can mingle with the general prison population, which includes about twenty other Muslims, most of them American-born converts like himself His main diversions are trans- lating ancient Arabic religious texts and reading. His lawyers recently bought him a subscription to the New York Times, and now that he's back in California, where he was raised, he has asked to receive the Los Angeles Times. Lindh has also met his goal of reading a hundred books dur- ing his first year in prison. His favorites have included Dostoyevsky's "The Broth- K " Vik F ankl ' " M ' ers aramawv; tor r s ans Search for Meaning," and the Harry Pot- ter novels, whose publication passed him by while he was cloistered in the Islamic madrasahs of Pakistan and camped along- side Taliban soldiers in Mghanistan. Lindh, who is now twenty-two years old, pleaded guilty last summer to having aided the Taliban regime. He is due to spend the next twenty years in prison. Ordinarily; a first-time offender convicted of a single, nonviolent felony would be spared such a long sentence. Lindh, how- ever, is the first American to have been successfully prosecuted as part of the Bush Administration's war on terrorism. Lindh was accused not only of embracing the beliefs of people who hated his own country but also of taking up arms with BY JANE MAYER them and being connected to the death of a young C.I.A. officer, Johnny Micheal Spann. From the moment Lindh was captured, in December of 2001, he was widely condemned as a murderous traitor. The Justice Department, in particular, promoted this view. Before Lindh was indicted, Attorney General John Ash- croft held a press conference in which he revealed that the department planned to charge Lindh with "conspiracy to kill na- tionals of the United States" and with "providing material support" to AI Qgeda. Ashcroft declared that Lindh's "allegiance to those fanatics and terrorists never fal- tered, not even with the knowledge that they had murdered thousands of his countrymen." When Ashcroft announced the indictment, which included ten counts, he described Lindh as "an AI Qgeda- trained terrorist." Lindh faced the possi- bilityof three life sentences plus an addi- tional ninety years in prison. This past summer, however, the gov- ernment abruptly dropped nine of the original charges. The case was settled in a weekend -long flurry of negotiations that ended at 2 A.M. on the day that keyevi- dence against Lindh was to be challenged in open court. As part of the plea agree- ment, Lindh accepted guilt on a charge that was not directly related to terrorism: violation of a 1999 executive order forbid- ding American citizens from contributing "services" to the T aliban. Ashcroft's high- profile prosecution effort mysteriously imploded. The Attorney General was not entirely convincing when he declared that Lindh's plea agreement was "an im- portant victory in the war on terrorism." T oday; the government continues to regard Lindh as an enemy of the state who poses a serious danger to na- tional securitJ Lindh is therefore covered by Special Administrative Measures, which prohibit him from speaking to the media. Bryan Sierra, a Justice Depart- ment spokesman, declined "to discuss the legal basis" for this decision, but noted that "such measures are intended to monitor activity in the most dangerous cases, to prevent them from plotting violent acts." With this gag order in effect, and with many documents in the case still classi- fied, much remains unknown about why the prosecution collapsed. Fragments of this stof)', however, have lately begun to emerge. Lindh's own words have surfaced in the fonn of notes taken during lengthy conversations -with him by people involved in preparing his defense. In addition, a fonner Justice Department lawyer who is troubled by the government's handhng of the case has decided to speak out. Rohan Gunaratna, a respected terror- ism scholar from Sri Lanka, interviewed Lindh for more than eight hours last sum- mer in Alexandria. Gunaratna, who is af- filiated -with the University of S1. Andrews, in Scotland, is the author of six books, in- cluding the recent "Inside AI Qgeda." A short, compactly built man with a friendly; wide face, Gunaratna met with me re- cently in Manhattan. He said that he had been wary when Lindh's defense lawyers first approached him about serving as an expert witness. He warned them that he believed that Lindh was almost certainly a member of AI Qgeda. The defense, un- deterred, pressed him to meet the young suspect, and Gunaratna eventually agreed. The encounter surprised him. "I have interviewed maybe two hundred terror- ists over the past few years," he told me, "and I am certain that John Walker Lindh has never been a terrorist, and never intended to be one." Peering over his round spectacles for emphasis, he said, "A terrorist is a person who conducts attacks against civilian targets. John Walker Lindh never did that. He trained 8 w co::: to fight in the Mghan Army, against ; other soldiers. He was not a member of In the Lindh case, the prosecutorial zeal of the Ashcroft Doctrine appears to have weakened the government's position. 50 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 10, 2003